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The Beloved Child (Chapter 2)Julissa Gayle Raven

Sierra searched the walls of the cave looking for any remnant of Gabriella. She had gone out earlier before the sun had come with burning clarity. Even at its partial stance on the horizon, she felt as if she must tear her eyes from her head. She had gathered gabriella's remaining tatters and had made her way back to the cave painfully. She felt terribly tired, but she wanted to make sure that there was something Gabriella had left behind, save breief memories of a time that wasn't long enough.
A shard of a mirror was wedged between two rocks in the cave. Sierra crossed in front of it and knelt down. Itw as empty. She passed a hand over it, but nothing reflected back. consued she picked up a rock and watched as it floated in mid air. Comprehension dawned. "Damnit!" She picked up the shard and threw at the opening of the cave. She leaned against the cave wall. Her hand brushed something, and she picked it up. It was a china doll.
Sierra stroked the doll lovingly. The bouncing blond curls rolled off the child's searching fingers. The impossibly long eyelashes blinked up at her with startling blond eyes. The pink cherry lips turned into a pouty smile. The child continued to stroke the round cheeks. The dress made of plain cotton and an abundance of petticoats spread about it like icing on a cake.
The front of the doll felt unnaturally crinkly and she slipped her hand inside its front. Inside was a folded note. She read:
This doll has helped me through many a night,
Belonged to me before I have become an eternal figure of darkness,
It represents all I had before,
May it bring you many a night of comfort,
As it has me,
Take care of it.
"So, Gabriella has left something for me," Sierra mused. She looked back down at the doll. She flipped the note over and on the reverse side contained another scrawled message:
I have left my few belongings in the case at the back.
May they help you in everything.
Sierra tossed the nto carelessly over her shoulder as she walked to the back. Then in a rush she flew back and reached for the note. She placed it back inside the doll's dress. She carried it to the back where a small weathered, leather case rested. She opened it and as it creaked with a terrible stiffness her eyes widened. Two mugs covered in cheese cloth, raised the most delicious smell to her nose, but she knew what it was and refused to touch them. Instead she turned her attention to another leatherbound object. A diary. She leafed through the pages and saw Gabriella's handwriting from the note on the last of the written pages. The last sentence read: ~Continue your story. An inkpot and a feather laid inside, almost demaning her attention she ignored it. She flipped back and read through Gabriella's section. "What kind of diary is not dated?"
Instead of yielding to her curious mind she read on.

~I am a vampire. How very imposing the word is, yet I feel no different. Except for this weariness that assumes its hold over me during the day. I have been left next to an enormous cave by the sea, that has intrigued me since childhood. How little I knew what it inhabited. A very happy birthday to me indeed, nineteen and a slave to the darkness. I thirst for something and I know what it is. I will not give in, I refuse. My will is stronger than most.
~I lie. The two mugs were filled with a sweet liquid that now I have an insatiable hunger for. So I took my first meal this night. It was not terribly hard, he played right into my hands. He wanted it, I could tell. Although his resisting at first bothered me, I couldn't stop my fangs from sinking into his sweet flesh where that vulnerable vein pulsed beneath. Am I a monster now?
~My doll, Molly. It is the only thing that brings joy to this dismal life. I cannot find happiness? Why ever not? I deserve it. Shouldn't being immortal do this for me?

Sierra skipped ahead tons of pages, because it was becoming repetitive, the same old litany of why was she alive. The conquests she had conquered and Sierra found it gruesome and unnecassary to read and document those. Hundreds of years, of death after death. Didn't anyone notice the random killings of the scum of society? She leafed through the pages thoughtlessly until something caught her eye.

~ I have met someone. Another, when I was ready to reach for his succulent flesh he threw himself at me and tried to do what I was thinking. I pushed him away, little does he know I am the same. He was also a creature of the night. We found an instant relationship, I suppose he will put off killing me until later. I wonder how he feels about me, but I care little.
~We are moving terribly fast, for having an eternity. He has kissed me and tells me he loves me. I don't believe the lying bastard. I saw him tell some other whore the same thing, right before sucking all that sweet blood form her.
~Tonight he has tried to take me, and he was surprised to see I am already one of them. He had smiled knowingly. He had said again he loved me before disappearing that night. I am glad, I hope I never see him again.
~He was staring at me from the cave this night, how daring. He sat there all night staring at me with those eyes that looked through me. I wondered if he could actually see me. I begin to think him blind, he doesn't ever look straight at me.
~I don't know how, but I think him and me shall be together forever. I will have his child to seal our bodies. Only now is the matter of convcing him the same.

At this point the story was scribbled and water stained beyond reading ability. But after what seemed chapters her script had become readable.

~This child that has been born of my womb is blind. I was right he is blind, and my child has inherited it. His acute hearing and smelling had threw me off. The child is a girl, but mortal. She bled when one of my nails grazed her arms. I had to know when her eyes were not lifeless. And I grieve for I cannot willingly make my child one of them but cannot bear to watch her die.

Sierra read on. Never mentioning what the child was. By the time she reached that final sentence once more, she realized that child was her. Left alone in front of a church which had caused Gabriella great pain physically and emotionally, and to watch her child be raised by uncaring nuns. It wasn't to bear. She replaced the leatherbound book. There would be no story for her to write.
Sierra laid down on an old pallet and rested her sore eyes. As thoughts of her mother squirreled around her head , morbid dreams claimed her mind.

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"not as clean as the previous story but still well above my own skill level of writing *applauds julie*" -- staci warren.